Eileen's First Year At Hogwarts
by Ana Silvertongue
Summary: Takes place 11 years after Lily's Eyes. If you've read that, it's obvious and amusing where this is going, if not, it's still fun. I own no characters but the ones you won't find in Herself's books, not even the gargoyle. Have fun!
1. In which a mystery begins

It was the little girl's first day of real school. Her mother had been teaching her small magics for years. How to control her temper in public. How to use her vela blood to make sure that strangers never hurt her. What creatures around her great grandmother's home to stay away from. How to keep the pointed ears she inherited from her mother hidden, even when her hair did not cover them. Small things, that wouldn't set off the ministry's sensors. She stepped through the barrier to platform 9 ¾ just as her parents had years before. Her mother stepped through behind her.

"Eileen, I have one more favor to ask you before you get on the train." Her mother whispered, kissing the part on the girl's shoulder-length chestnut red hair.

"Yes mum?" she asked, the excitement in her thin frame making her quiver with anticipation.

"If you don't get picked for Slytherin, it's okay. Just because your father and I were both in there doesn't mean you have to be." Bright green eyes looked up towards their twins twenty six years their senior. "And remember, don't give Professor Snape too much trouble. I want no owls from the headmaster about your behavior." The wicked little face looked up completely innocent belying the fact that she was planning on making trouble. She had overheard her mother's concerned conversations with her great-grandmother about her going to school at Hogwarts. Her mother had been of two minds about her attending school where Severus Snape still taught. Something about the way she talked about this mysterious man made the little girl wonder what had happened between them. Something awful maybe, but her mother sounded sad, like she still cared for him.

"Yes mum, I will try to stay out of trouble, but I can't make any promises." She said honestly. Her mother smiled, seeming sad and happy at the same time. She ruffled her daughter's fine, lank hair.

"You remind me so much of you father sometimes. Be good and don't start any fights. Write me if you need me, and I'll see you at the Christmas Holidays."


	2. In which likenesses are copared

The Sorting hat sat on the stool once more quiet. The new students were all huddled at the foot of the stairs, ringing the ominous natty old hat. Professor McGonagall stood with the list.

"Eileen Nymphaea Arwres" she declared the first student to be sorted. The slender little girl stepped out from behind her new classmates, her red hair glinting in the torch light. The headmaster shifted in his seat to get a better view of the first student as she approached the stool. The last name was the same as that of his ex-wife and he recalled that her brother had had a daughter about that age maybe. The little girl lifted her head to look up at Minerva and her hair fell away from her face. He sucked in his breath with a hiss, his eyes narrowing as she turned and he saw her profile. Thin aquiline nose, black eyebrows, no it couldn't be. He clenched his hands, nails tearing into the armrests. That face had been dead and buried for twenty years.

The little girl looked up at him, getting a good view of the man she had heard her mother talking about. Her green eyes caught the black ones determinedly looking at her, neither fierce, despite the face they were in, nor glowering as the students with older siblings said was his wont, but simply and utterly dumbstruck.

Alecto Carrow leaned over towards him. Simpering she stroked his hand. "What's wrong Severus? You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

"Yes Alecto, the bloody baron is hovering right over the door." He snarled under his breath, snatching his hand away.

"Slytherin!" the hat announced as soon as it touched the girl's head. Severus Snape sighed. "That little girl is going to be trouble Alecto." The witch grinned maliciously.

"I'm sure I can think of creative ways to keep her in line, headmaster."

"She is not to be touched. We do not punish our own." He growled.

The queue of new students was rapidly dwindling. Parents were reluctant to send their children to a Hogwarts run by the ministry after the death of the most beloved headmaster in two hundred years, that and the ministry's ridiculous ban on muggle born students made for a much smaller crowd. Eileen had trotted off to the Slytherin table, the most populated of the four. She was one of only six new students at the table this year however. The sorting over, Headmaster Severus Snape took the podium. His steely gaze raked the diminished crowd for any sign of trouble before making the usual announcements at the beginning of term. The Forbidden Forest is still out of bounds, if the students value their very lives, for the centaurs had started shooting on sight any humans who entered their territory. There was to be no dueling in the halls, nothing from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, or any other of a long list of nominally forbidden things. At the end of each rehearsed phrase, Snape found himself glaring at the students, his gaze increasingly drawn to the small red-headed girl at the Slytherin table. Wrapping up his short, curt speech, he stalked out of the Great Hall, headed towards his office to think, having lost all of his appetite.

He stormed through the hallways towards the headmaster's office, muttering dire threats at the shadows as he passed. "Dumbledore" he snarled as soon as he reached the gargoyle. "You know headmaster, it's your office, you don't need to give me the password every time." teased the stone creature.

"Shut it you, or you'll be out on the battlement in the rain" snapped Snape as he headed up the staircase.

"Touchy tonight ain't he?" the gargoyle commented to the portrait across the hall.

"Hmph." The picture of the diminutive witch responded.

The door to the office above wrenched open again. "I heard that you blithering lump of asphalt." The door slammed again, so hard this time that the wall shook.


	3. In which Pansy visits the library

During dinner Pansy Parkinson kept looking between the little red-headed girl at her table and the back of Ginny Weasley's own head a the Gryffindor table. Milicent Bulstrode noticed her friend's distraction with the two young women.

"Think we have a Weasley in the house, Pansy?"

"No, not a Weasley. Something else. Something familiar. She looks like someone I know, but not a damn Gryffindor. She seems familiar. Something about the shape of her face."

"Looks like a pair of Gryffs I know, Pansy. Ginny Weasley's hair and Harry Potter's eyes. Look how green they are!"

"No, she reminds me of my mum's cousin. I've seen her picture in the family album. I think her last name started with a P. Prince maybe. She just looks so familiar."

"I dunno Pansy. I'd have to see a picture of her. Looks like somebody I know too. Maybe not Potter though. You got a picture of that cousin?"

"Not here, I've got my family tree though, so we can look her up in the old yearbooks. Maybe that's her granddaughter. Although I think mum said she married some manky old muggle."

"Ugh, so she's at least a half blood if not almost muggle born. At least she's in a good house that's not all blood traitors."

"True," agreed Pansy. She got up and made the announcement that all Slytherin first years were to follow her. Blaise Zabini having been made the replacement 7th year prefect for Slytherin house went with her. Gentleman that he is he brought up the rear of the group, making sure all the girls went first. Pansy gave all the first years the password as they walked towards the door.

"Eileen, is it?" she asked the little redheaded girl once they were in the common room.

"Yes?" the small girl answered a little apprehensive, she was after all being addressed by a prefect and a 7th year.

"What's your last name Eileen? You look familiar."

"Oh, Arwres. Mum says I look like my dad's mum. Never got to meet her though. Mum said she died a long time before I was born, and my dad didn't hang around. Left mum when she was still pregnant. Never met him. Why?"

"You just look a lot like somebody in an old photo I have. I'll show it to you if you want." Eileen was dazzled and flattered that one of the older girls, a seventh year none the less, was trying to make friends with her.

"Oh, thank you. That would be nice." She smiled. Her smile, while lopsided and slightly clumsy, dazzled the older girl a bit. She seemed very enthusiastic about any kind of friendship offered, and Pansy wondered how many other wizarding children she had been around before.

"Is your mum a witch?" Pansy asked, saccharine sweet to tempt a juicy secret out of the girl.

"Oh yes. She's a very powerful witch. Her grandmother was from one of the old families related to the Daoine Sidhe. Gran's nice, it's where I get my eyes from. And the hair, I guess. But I am a pureblood, if that's what you're thinking. My mum is Ana Elizabeth Arwres, said dad was one of the most talented wizards she'd ever met."

"Hey! I've heard of your mum. She was in school a few years behind my mum, and in Slytherin too. She had all the boys chasing after her. Mum said she was infatuated with Snape though. God knows why."

"That's . . . interesting. Mum doesn't much like Snape now. Must have been something to do after they graduated. Oh well. Thanks Pansy!" The little girl took the steps two at a time toward the dormitories.

Pansy Parkinson stared after her. –What an odd little girl.- she thought, her mind racing. She went up the stone staircase slowly, thinking. - She is pureblood. If she were less than a half blood, she wouldn't be in slytherin. She just seemed awkward.- Pansy had reached her dormitory. She opened the trunk and pulled out her family tree. There, Eileen Prince was her mum's cousin on that side. She grabbed her bag and strode back to the common room.

"Milicent. Library. Now." She called. The larger girl got up from the chair she had been reclining in, denying it from a second year who had said his foot hurt.

"There you little gimp. Just had to wait a bit." She trotted to catch up with Pansy. "What's up Pansy? Any good tidbits about the girl?"

"Yeah, remember that cousin of my mum's I told you about? Her name was Eileen too, Eileen Prince. I really do think this kid is related to her, but not by her mum. She said her mum's name was Arwres but it sounds like she's one of the Rhys clan. That explains the hair and the eyes. She's a pureblood all right, but I don't know who her dad is. Her mum used to hang around Professor Snape when they were at school. I think he might know if anyone would. Did you see the way he left the great hall earlier? He knows something, I'm sure of it."

They were walking down the hallway towards the library. Madame Pince was just unlocking the doors for anyone wanting to get a head start on their studies. She smiled at Pansy and Milicent.

"Starting early for your NEWTS dears? I'm glad to see you finally buckling down."

Pansy shrugged, "We're working on a little genealogy project. Could you help us find some information?" Pansy simpered, never one for doing her own research.

"Well dears, is this recent genealogy or long past?" Mdm. Pince walked them towards the older tomes full of the official birth and death records from all the old villages.

"Oh, I'd say, fairly recent, about the 1940's or 50's I think." Pansy smiled, her chosen quarry seeming almost in her grasp. "I was wondering if you might have any information on a former student, a cousin of my mum's. Eileen Prince?"

"Hrm, that would be in the social records, they're over here" Mdm Pince lead the way. "Here, I remember her. First year I was here was hers. Always in the library she was. Ended up gobstones champion her seventh year." The girls were following her closely."I don't remember who she married after she graduated, I think it was a muggle." She looked at the shelf in front of her, the shelf missing three of the society yearbooks. "Hrm. I know these books were here last week. Someone must have come in and borrowed them." She leaned over and looked at the shelving cart. "Aaaah yes, there they are. Right this way ladies and we'll see what we may find." She opened the first one labeled 1959. "Prince . . . Prince. Aaaah here it is Eileen Prince, daughter of . . ." her voice trailed off as she saw the ragged bit of burnt parchment where the next page had been torn out. "Oh dear. This is not how we treat books. Ladies, excuse me, I need to speak with the headmaster. Someone has been deliberately damaging my books" and calmly ushered them out the door.

As soon as they were gone, she bolted the door and ran back to the cart. Flipping through the three tomes for any mention of Eileen Prince, it seems someone had violently burned the pages out of the books mentioning her, her husband and their child. She knew who had done the damage, the only other person in the school who would know what damage could come from the knowledge contained within. "Augh! That slope shouldered, greasy haired git. That conniving bastard. I know he's the one behind this. Of all the nerve. Coming in here and destroying my books. Not only that, effectively erasing himself from polite society outside of the school. He is not going to get away with this. Not on my watch. No sir."

The girls could hear her ranting from outside the door, but were only able to catch about one word in four. All they could tell was that the perpetrator was a he and would be in a very big cauldron of hot water when Madame Pince caught up to him.


	4. In which much is revealed

"You are aware, Severus, that having relations with women often begets children?" chided the portrait of the late Professor Dumbledore that hung above the desk.

"She swore to me when I left that she had lost the baby. She had been sick in bed at her grandmother's for a week! I saw the blood! She lied to me Albus. She outright lied." Hogwarts' newest headmaster paced round and round the large mahogany desk that was now his.

"I never really wanted her in the first place. She seduced me. She convinced me that she didn't care if I still loved Lily, that she'd be happy with what little of me she could have. And I looked up at her, and I had never seen how beautiful her eyes were. I couldn't help it. She looked like the Lily I never had, beautiful and loving, and mine. And I couldn't say no Albus. You knew about it and didn't do anything to stop it. How could I have done?"

The portrait Albus shifted in his seat looking uncomfortable. "Honestly Severus, I wouldn't know. I never let myself be tempted by such things. Too dangerous for someone of my proclivities."

"What a damn fool I was, letting myself believe that she didn't really love me, so we weren't lovers. When she told me she was going to have my baby. MY BABY, Albus. I thought I could actually have loved her then. She only told me on the day we went and registered at the ministry. I told her that my mother would be so happy to finally have a grandchild, even though she had already passed on." The befuddled, angry and embarrassed man sat down in the chair facing the big desk's front.

"When I thought she had lost the baby, when she told me to leave . . ." Severus shook his head "I left. Like a fool I just left, no questions asked. I never, never in a million years thought that she might have still been pregnant. I wouldn't have left if I had known."

"Would you Severus, would you really have stayed with a woman you knew you didn't love for the sake of an unknown child?" Albus asked in a fatherly tone. When Snape just looked at him, once again without words, he went on. "Would you have endangered the life of Harry Potter, LILY's son for the sake of your own child by a mother to whom you did not love?"

As Severus was trying to gain enough words to formulate a reply, there came a soft knocking at the office door. He cleared his throat, glaring at the portrait above the desk.

"Enter." He was finally able to reply, the usual sharp tone of his voice modulated by the strong emotions he was currently feeling. The small, normally quiet librarian walked through the doorway.

"Headmaster, someone has been desecrating my books." She arched an eyebrow as she marched up to the big desk dropping the three heavy volumes onto the desk. They landed with a resounding thump that shook the floor. One look at the spines told Severus everything he needed to know, including just how much trouble he was in on this particular front.

He swallowed, almost audibly. "Really, I don't think it is a matter of national security that someone has torn pages out of some old society yearbooks, Irma." He almost half smiled, although the resulting facial contortion conveyed almost a look of pain rather than the snide sarcasm he was going for.

At that exact moment an extremely large raven came tearing out of the chimney carrying an equally large red envelope sealed with a blob of gold wax and a silver ribbon. Severus' eyes widened, his face blanched and he stepped back from the desk that the raven was now perched on.

"Already receiving hate mail Severus? You haven't even been headmaster over an actual school day yet." Irma raised the other eyebrow as she crossed her arms and went to stand near the other side of the large stone column. – _If nothing else, this should be quite as fulfilling as the new orifice I was going to endow him with_ – the overly literate witch thought.

Trembling slightly Severus' hand reached out and took the envelope from the raven who then gracefully flew upwards and perched on the banister, nearly a story above. Shaking even more as he reached forward and broke the dragon insignia stamped into the still warm wax, he let out a deep breath. When he dropped his hand the envelope levitated itself up to be even with his face before it began to berate him in his ex-wife's voice.

"Don't You dare try to lecture me about my life. You walked out. You have no right to come bitching to me about what you missed out on. Yes, when I though I had lost the baby I yelled at you to leave. I didn't mean never come back. You of all people should understand that kind of depressive grief. Instead, bastard that you are, you never even wrote. What, did you think I wasn't in physical and emotional pain? I thought I had lost the best thing that ever happened to me. You have no idea what that little girl means to me, and you don't need to share that. Just leave her alone and treat her like any other student." The envelope then ripped itself into much smaller pieces that then each started a chorus round of "Bastard! Bastard! Leave her alone!" while attacking one at a time, like little birds snipping at his head in a cloud of red paper.

Just as he was swatting at the first of the attacking bits of wood pulp the office door slammed open and the owner of the voice still echoing in his ears stalked into the room, her dark auburn brown hair reaching past her waist. She took aim first at Madam Pince. "Irma, this is private. Out." She pointed at the still open door.

"Ana, how good to see you. You look well . . ." Snape came close to simpering.

"Don't you even think to try and tell me that all of a sudden, after nearly twelve years you want to be a part of our lives again. I have been without you long enough that your daughter has never seen your picture and honestly doesn't know who you are. I went back to my maiden name after you left so that she would never know how despicable her father was. Don't touch her, don't go near her. DO NOT let her know that you are related to her. I want her to have nothing to do with you other than being a student at Hogwarts. It's the safest place for her right now."

The bits of paper had finally abated like evil confetti, and Severus was coming back to his usual snide self.

"Ana, honestly the safest place for her would be on another continent. You do know that the Dark Lord has access to all the information going on at the ministry?"

"Who doesn't know that? Idiot man, she's safest here, surrounded by all the key fighters against that ass. She needs to learn how to defend herself in ways that cannot be taught at home. She needs the control gained by class work and the stimulation of other people her age. All I'm asking is that you keep her as safe as all the rest of the students and don't tell her you are her father. Nothing more, nothing less. Of all people I thought you would be the most trustworthy of that mission since you didn't give a damn before she was born that she was yours, so why should you now?"

The tall thin man stood there with his mouth hanging open in amazement. The sounds coming out of his mouth were nothing near articulate. It was then that the portrait of former headmaster Albus Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"I do believe Severus, that you have just experienced what is called a burn." The painting chuckled under its voice.

"Albus, keep an eye on him. Make sure he's no more of a bastard than usual. I do not want to hear about him harassing Eileen or focusing on her too much." Ana crossed her arms.

"Ana, I can't believe you want me to have nothing to do with my daughter. She is my daughter by your own admission. What am I supposed to do completely ignore that she exists right under my nose now that she's here?" The petite woman's eyes narrowed perceptively. She walked up nearly nose to chest with him, grabbed the lapels of his jacket and slapped his face so hard that his head snapped to the side and he spit out a bit of blood.

"Don't you dare you cringing son of a bitch. You are nothing to her other than a sperm donor and the protector of the school she attends. She is not to know of the former, so long as you are the latter." She spit in his face. "Huginn, Muninn, time to go." The large black raven above swooped down as did his mate who had perched above the door when she had entered. "Now Huginn, what do we say to Professor Snape?" after the female bird flew across the room to make a deposit on his robes. She then perched on her mistress' shoulder, picked at her hair and squaked "Nevermore!" at the startled man.

"That's sick Ana. You're _so_ adult teaching a damned raven to 'quoth nevermore." He finally was able to snap back once she was almost through the door.

"Not as sick as the necrophilic crush you still have on Lily Potter. At least I'm not still holding on to my teenage lust. Who's the adult now Severus?" and with that she stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Snape stood there alternating between glaring at the bird droppings on his robe and the door where she had just left. The portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black took the opportunity to add his observation to the group at large. "And that, Severus, is what is called a 'bitch-slap', to use the vernacular of the student body. Although in my day, letting your witch speak that way to you would mean a severe beating at the hands of her husband."

"Phineas, this is no time to intrude your views upon Severus' personal life. Your wife died in childbirth did she not?" scowled Albus' portrait. "Or at least one of them did anyway."

Severus had glared at the portrait before taking out a handkerchief and wiping at the stain on his shoulder.

"It never ends does it? So long as they're alive they taunt and heckle even when you haven't gone near them in years, all of a sudden they come back to heckle even more." The younger man scowled at the stain that he had succeeded only in making bigger. "What, does this bird have magical shit? Oh my good god." He nearly dropped the handkerchief as realization hit. "I don't even know if it was annulled. I never checked to see if she had filed an annulment. I never received any legal notice." He sat down hard and pulled the newest tome towards himself. "Ninteen-eighty nine . . . eighty nine, eighty nine. Here we go." He flipped quickly through the year looking for any notice of divorce or annulment. "Nothing. I left in late December, anything that may have been filed would have been the next year. There's nothing there from eighty nine."

--------

A/N: Huginn and Muninn were the ravens who were Odin's eyes and ears in the wider world, every morning they would traverse the Norse countryside and bring Odin the news before breakfast, in that way he could be the first to know anything in the country.

If you've ever tried to clean raven or other corvid excrement off of a car, sidewalk, coat, etc. you'll know just how sticky and disgusting it is. It's not like regular bird poo, it's like the old Nickelodeon Gak and slime mixed together (and smells much worse.)

And if you've never read Edgar Allan Poe's poem the Raven, go do it. NOW! It is a fantastic piece of work and has a wonderful rythm to it. It makes a really great monologue when done properly.


End file.
